As a marketer, you’ve probably been asked to produce branded promotional items for an event, seminar, customer visit, or some other activity. And if you’re like most, you quickly discovered there are lots of items to choose from, each with their own unique benefits and advantages.

Events are enjoying a resurgence. That means companies are looking for branded promotional items that help them make an impression without breaking the bank.

The success of any event giveaway is measured by impressions—that is, the number of people who see the product and logo over the item’s lifetime. The size of the event (and potential audience) must be carefully weighed against the quality of the item and the available budget in order to make a lasting and favorable impression. The price of each item should be directly related to the amount of business they are expected to generate from the attendees.

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been exploring recent trends that are influencing how businesses are spending their marketing budgets these days, first introduced in a blog post on the PPAI Expo back in January. Those trends include an industry-wide move towards more conscious consumerism as well as a growing preference for buying promotional items based on well-known retail brands.

A recent blog post highlighted various trends that are influencing how businesses are currently spending their budgets.

We detailed one of those trends, conscious consumerism, in late February. With this post, we are examining a second: a preference by customers for well-known retail brands when it comes to branded promotional items.

In a recent blog post, we reported that several trends are currently influencing how businesses are spending their budgets, driven largely by the combined goals of cost efficiency and social consciousness.